The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: They Said ‘Punch Him’—Now It’s Bullets: The Dangerous Escalation No One Wants to Admit

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

No president in U.S. history has been the target of three assassination attempts in which shots were fired by either law enforcement or the shooter himself. And yet this is Trump’s third time. Political violence doesn’t happen overnight. For almost a decade now, the Left has reified the idea that 1. Trump is “literally Hitler” and 2. that harming him is justified—Gavin Newsom and Robert De Niro talked about hitting Trump in the mouth. Shakespeare in the Park substituted Caesar for a Trump look-alike. Anthony Bourdain said he’d poison him. And that lowers the bar. And that means people like Cole Tomas Allen come out of the woodwork, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. We had the third attempt on Donald Trump's life that were shots were exchanged within two years. recently at the White House Correspondents' dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. on last Saturday evening. No president in U.S. history has been the object, the target, of three assassination attempts in which shots were fired by one of the either law enforcement or the shooter himself. And yet, this is the third time. So we've had this Cole, Thomas Allen.

We had Ruth, remember, in Palm Beach, and we had crooks on the roof in Butler. We also had a young man, I think his name was Martin, and he was the person who tried to break into Marlago and kill Trump, and he was killed himself by law enforcement. Trump was not at Marlago. But what is building this up? What's the reason for all this? and I'll give you some examples. One is Hassan Piker. He's sort of the Nick Fuentes of the left.

He's a influencer, a podcaster, a commentator, and he's captivated the base of the left with his extreme anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, pro-Islamic rhetoric. And he has said most recently, in an interview with a New Yorker S.AS and a New York Times reporter that it was fine to steal, steal from the Louvre, steal from stores, according to his Marxist doctrine that each people must take or deserve to take what they need, given he feels the oppression of capitalism. He also, we remember very controversially in this interview, excused or praise, he didn't want to quite say that he would have done, killed Brian Thompson,

the CEO of United Healthcare, but he said it was a social murder. In other words, according to Marxist dialogue, that's a term the people use to say that when somebody is deemed arbitrarily the enemy of the people, you can kill them with exemption. But here's what I'm getting at. In an earlier interview, he says, everybody knows someone has to do it. And Taylor Lorenz, who had interviewed him on, I guess, more than one occasion, pointed out he was talking about at that time killing Trump. So he lowered the bar. In addition to people like Hassan Piker, there's a number of celebrities, movie stars, political, and they've lowered the bar of the acceptable. And by that I mean they have in various ways talked about either killing Trump or beating him up.

And they all have preferred methodologies for Nancy Pelosi or Gavin Newsom or Robert De Niro. Their preference was hitting him in the mouth. You remember that? He said they'd like to hit him. Nancy Pelosi said, I'd like to hit him and then I would go to jail. It's fine. Newsom said he wanted to hit him in the mouth. Robert DeNiro has said it so many times I can't even recall them all.

For Kathy Griffith, remember, her preferred method was decapitation for Shakespeare in the park. Remember that Shakespearean troupe that substituted a person who looked like Trump for Julius Caesar, where he was stabbed numerous times? We had a famous chef who suggested he would like to poison Trump. We had Snoop Dogg who said that he would shoot Trump, and I think he reenacted that. we've had people who have suggested that I think we had a rock group that's portrayed Trump as carrion that was being eaten by vultures. I could go on, but my point is that people on the left in popular culture have for now almost a decade reified the idea, the abstract idea of killing Trump, but real examples. And that lowers the bar. And that means people like Cole, Thomas, Allen come out of the woodwork or the Martin fellow who broke into Marlago or Ruth or crooks.

They come out of because they feel that they're going to be in the pantheon of leftist heroes if they kill Trump. It's not just these people, though. There's also, remember, major figures, not just crazy people in Hollywood. or a crazy politician, but major institutions that have talked about Trump is a fascist. Kamala Harris has said that Donald Trump on two occasions, she said he was a fascist. Tim Walts just flew all the way to anti-American Barcelona, anti-American Spain in a time of a war and wrote off the war, the effort of our military, and Donald Trump is fascism. That was the sixth time.

Six times he's called Trump a fascist. Do you remember the New Republic cover during the campaign where they had a picture of Donald Trump photoshopped as if he was Adolf Hitler? Joey Reed, who's now orphaned from the network, she's lost her job, but she almost religiously said that Donald Trump was a Hitlerian figure. Rachel Maddow said, I have to study Hitler more

to understand Trump. Well, my point is this. If all these celebrities are talking about killing them, burning him, cutting them in pieces, blowing up, remember Madonna and Moby? Let's blow him up. If they all do that ad nauseum again and again over a decade. And then you have this new heartthrob that the Nick Fuentes of the left, Hassan Piker. And he's really legitimizing murder by contextualizing Luigi Mangione and making him into a hero. and also so everybody knows what you have to do, as I said. So he is lowering the bar.

And then you have these major news reporters and politicians talking about Trump. And I say major. I mean, the Democratic ticket was headed by Kamala Harris and Tim Walts. And what they have in common, they refer to Donald Trump as a fascist. My point is this. If you believe he's a fascist like Hitler and many times refer to him. him, as Hitler, as many have done, Hitler caused a war that killed 70 million people. He incinerated six million Jews and another half million political prisoners, gypsies,

homosexuals. So he's an evil man. So if a person is a little bit on hinged or he's on social media or he's suffering from arrested development and he's living at home like many of these people were, they get into their head that if I shoot Donald Trump, I'm going to be in the pantheon of leftist heroes for the rest of eternity. And maybe they're right. Because remember, you go into social media sometimes,

and these people will celebrate the attempt, but regret the inability to kill Trump. Now, let me just finish by saying, over this two-year period, there's been three attempts. He's got two more years in office. The Secret Service was lax under Biden. They did a wonderful job inside the Hilton Hotel, but there were problems why Mr.

Mr. Allen was able to go in, check in with weaponry, and apparently walk around with weapons in his possession, and no one found him or checked him, or there was no security check on the entrance of the hotel. So my point is, in the next two years, we should expect, unfortunately, tragically, more of these assassination attempts, unless we get people in the Democratic Party to speak out and say stop it. We've had Steve Scalise and the baseball murders. Bernie Sanders A. did that.

We had Charlie Kirk who was shot. Another leftist shot him. People on the left, many of them celebrated. Hickham Jeffries came out after this talk and he said, what? We've got to lower the tempo. Congratulations, House Majority Leader Jeffries. I just wish that you, when you oppose the Big Beautiful Bill, didn't pose. with a baseball bat or that female members of the congressional Democratic delegation didn't

make a video about fighting and kickboxing and punching a imaginary Trump is what we were supposed to understand. Or maybe, Representative Jeffries, just maybe you should tell major luminaries in the Democratic side of politics, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, as I said, Tim Walz. Jasmine Crockett, Camela Harris. Please stop calling Trump fascist Hitler. And then we would believe you. But otherwise, we simply don't,

and you've lowered the bar for every nut in America to take a shot at a president. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website

at Victorhanssen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.